The Gloomfang led us. Silent. Its once-monstrous form now trailing soft mist behind each step, like breath after a fever breaks.
We followed.
The path narrowed, the crystal formations parting like quiet witnesses. I felt the shift before I heard it—air thinning, not from altitude, but from weight. Emotional gravity. Like the place ahead didn't just hold truths, but fed on them. Made you chew them. Swallow them. Try not to choke.
Then we saw it.
A clearing opened, and in its heart: the lake.
Mirror Lake.
It didn't glitter. Didn't ripple. Didn't move. Just… waited.
Still as withheld judgment. Smooth as forgetting.
But it saw everything.
I stopped at the edge, my breath catching like it wasn't mine to hold.
I couldn't see it—not the way the others did—but I felt it.
Felt the shimmer of it against my skin. Like invisible rain. Like a thousand eyes, watching from beneath the surface.
"I don't like this," Dolly said, arms crossed, jaw tight. "It's too quiet. Like a stage before someone bleeds."
Grin was already kneeling. Hands hovering just above the water. His mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.
"…It's showing me… what I could have been," he whispered. "Before the ferrying. Before the scythe. A boy who danced."
The water flickered.
I didn't see the image. But I heard something. Music. Soft and clumsy. Feet slipping over wood floors. A laugh. Grin's—only higher. Younger. Untouched.
His breath stuttered. "I let it all rot. I thought… if I held pain, no one else would have to. But pain doesn't subtract. It multiplies."
Then he stood. Wiped his eyes. Didn't explain further.
Dolly was next.
She approached like she was approaching a duel. Like she might have to punch the water.
The lake reflected her.
A doll on a shelf. Dust in her hair. A girl's voice calling out—once, twice, then fading. Then silence.
"I was made to be discarded," she muttered. "And I tried to be fine with that. Pretty. Poised. Useful. But I think… I want to be chosen."
The water pulsed.
She stepped back, spine still straight. But her gloves trembled.
Antic didn't hesitate. Of course he didn't. He marched up like the lake owed him money.
His reflection flickered fast—too fast. Him as a joke. Then a villain. Then a thing not even worth laughing at. A child being pushed. A teen shoving back. A man dancing like it didn't hurt.
Then… one image held.
Him, older. Not sad. Not manic. Just… whole.
He stared.
Said nothing.
Then wiped his nose, muttered, "Fuckin' lake," and shuffled back toward us.
I was last.
I stepped forward. My foot touched the edge.
And I didn't see a reflection.
There was no mirror for someone without eyes.
But I felt something shift. Felt the lake turn its attention inward. Toward me.
And then—
Heat. Memory. A whisper in a voice I'd almost forgotten.
Joy.
Her laughter. The way she ran. The way she looked at me.
The lake didn't show me what I feared.
It showed me what I missed.
It showed me who I'd loved.
And what I had to remember.
I sank to my knees.
A tear fell into the water. It didn't ripple. It just… took it.
Held it.
And then let go.
Behind me, Antic crouched low. Not too close.
"Ya alright?" he asked, voice soft. Like velvet tugged through gravel. "Ya don't gotta say nothin', ya know. Just… if ya wanted me to sit here with ya a minute…"
I reached for his hand.
I didn't know why. I just did.
He gave it. Warm. Calloused. Not gentle, exactly—but real.
"I can't see anything," I murmured. "But I felt… her."
Antic nodded. "Yeah. The lake's weird like that. Shows ya what you need, not what you asked for. Kinda like me, but with better hygiene."
I huffed something like a laugh.
He didn't let go.
The Gloomfang stood at the far edge, staring into the water.
Its breath slowed. Its shape shrank. And then it stepped aside.
Behind it: a path.
A corridor of glimmering stone.
And at the end—barely visible—was the faint pulse of the next Breath.
Jalen's....?
It smelled like gardenias and cigarette smoke.
The scent hit me first—soft, then sharp, then gone. Like it was never really there. Like me.
My hands were covered in earth, fingers wrapped around stems that twitched as if they were breathing. I worked in a shop, I think. Petals whispered secrets between my knuckles, like they knew I didn't need eyes to see the cracks blooming in the walls. That's how I knew I wasn't dreaming.
Because dreams don't hum like this.
The city outside throbbed with jazz and horse carts, laughter spilling into alleyways that didn't echo right. Air thick with perfume and burnt bread and something older—something trying too hard to be forgotten. I felt every bit of it. The cobblestones beneath my shoes didn't match the rhythm of the voices around them. The walls breathed too slow. The wind murmured wrong names.
There was something broken here.
And it had teeth.
"Miss Flower?"
The voice scratched the inside of my ribs. I turned, blindly.
She moved like she'd never tripped in her life. Smooth voice, red lips, no nonsense. Tiny bells on her wrists. I didn't need to see her to know she was pretty. You could hear it in the way men hesitated when she passed.
"You been starin' at the roses too long," she said. "They ain't gonna kiss you back, baby."
She chuckled, and I didn't.
I knew her. Sort of. The smell of porcelain and smoke. Her voice hitched on words like she was biting them before letting them out. She wore too many rings and none of them were sentimental.
"Dolly," I whispered.
The name slid out, accidental. She stiffened.
"Huh. That's strange." She glanced out the window. "Ain't told nobody that name since… I don't remember." She cleared her throat, then snapped, "Anyway, don't be late tonight. The Reverend's boy's getting buried. That mother wants wild hyacinths, and grief don't wait on slow hands."
I nodded, but my hands didn't move. Something inside the stems—inside the soil—itched. Like bones trying to grow backward.
After she left, I stood there listening to the city twitch.
Footsteps outside. Leather shoes on wet stone. Loud, confident, a little bit stupid.
Antic.
I'd know his rhythm anywhere.
He burst in like the door owed him money. A saxophone slung over one shoulder, a half-eaten peach in the other, wearing suspenders too tight and morals too loose.
"Oi, flowers-for-eyes," he greeted, accent thicker than molasses and twice as smug. "You got any posies for a boy whose soul's been kissed by jazz?"
I didn't flinch. "No eyes."
He blinked.
"That's what they call me here," I murmured, brushing soil off my skirt. "No eyes."
Antic stepped closer. His voice dropped into something softer, less carnival. "Well, that's bloody tragic. Suits you, though. Little spooky. Little sexy."
I wanted to laugh but didn't. The tension under my skin was too tight, like strings tuned wrong.
He tilted his head, his crown—no longer apricot pits, but brass buttons—glinting in the morning light. "Don't take this the wrong way, but... do you feel like this place is wearin' someone else's skin?"
I nodded slowly. "Everything's smiling with the wrong mouth."
He exhaled, pulling a cigarette from his vest pocket but not lighting it. "Thought so. Thought it was just me havin' a weird jazz hangover."
The bells jingled again.
Dolly returned with a man in a long black coat. He didn't speak, just stood in the doorway like a shadow pretending to be a person. He smelled like dust and river stones and secrets buried under unmarked graves.
Grin.
He looked at me like he didn't know me.
Then his eyes flicked to Antic. A twitch in his jaw.
Dolly snapped, "Mr. G should help with the arrangements. He runs the funeral home. Been doing it since forever, I think."
Antic made a face. "Creepy bastard."
Grin finally spoke. Slow. Measured. Like every word cost him something.
"…You look familiar."
"You smell like a dead oath," I replied.
His jaw flexed. Then, finally, a blink.
"…Right."
That's when the boy passed the window.
Thin. Eyes too old for his face. Shoulders hunched from carrying more than groceries.
And something in my chest screamed.
He was humming. Quiet. Like a tune from a long way down.
I turned fast—too fast. Almost dropped a pot.
"Who is that?" I asked. My voice didn't sound like mine. It cracked. Raw.
Dolly blinked. "The Jenkins kid. Name's Jalen. Poor boy's mother's real sick. He works odd jobs. Courier stuff. Groceries. Shit no one else wants."
Antic squinted through the window. "He looks… lonely."
I knew him.
I didn't know how.
But I did.
My hands went still. The dirt turned to ash between my fingers.
There was something terribly wrong with this city.
And he was at the center of it.